Hard

Being a mom is hard. 

It's hard at the very beginning of pregnancy, when you are exhausted and green around the gills, and the very thought of the grocery store makes you vomit into your purse. 

It's hard at the end of pregnancy when you are ( still) tired and sore, and you can't walk up the stairs without wanting to sit down and cry. 

It's hard when the baby is small, and your nipples are sore, and no one sleeps, and the whole world is a blurry cycle of diapers and milky burps. 

It's hard when the toddler is into everything, tearing up the house, and your patience hangs by a thread very single day. 

It's hard when your preschooler wants to paint and go to the park and take 5 baths and climb a mountain all in the same day, and by then you probably have another baby or pregnancy that takes more than you have to give. 

It's hard when you send kids to school with clean faces and empty backpacks and get them home dirty and grumpy and worn out, with a stack of papers for you to sign. 

It's hard when your middle schooler is so awkward, that you wish you could show everyone that they are more than the sum of those pimples and braces and lanky hair.

It's hard when the girl that they like says no. 

It's hard when they are planning to leave you, and deciding things that will matter for a long, long time. 

It's hard not to pass on our own issues and weaknesses to a new generation. It's hard when you stay at home and seldom converse with anyone over five. It's hard when you divide your time between home and work and your mind is never free from either place. 

It's just hard. It stays hard.  In fact, it is so hard that some choose not to undertake it. 

It is so hard that it stretches us to the limit and makes us stumble under the weight of it. 

So, why do we do it? Why do we keep wiping the noses and washing the clothes and washing the dishes and making dinner day after day after day? 

Because it's not about the dinner, or the dishes or the laundry. It's about these small people who trust
us and fill up our hearts in a way that no one else ever has. It's because we promised. We promised
these  people that we would do our best. That we would try every day. And that is all we really, truly 

need to do. 

We have to keep trying. We have to get up in the morning and try again. And every day, we get another chance. We make choices, and fall flat on our faces and screw up. And then we do it again. But, the trying matters. It changes things. It builds a life and a family and teaches them to trust you. 

We try again, and we may fail again. And it just stays hard. But we do it every day. We continue to mother these children in the best way we know how. 

Because watching your children watch the fireworks is so much greater than watching them yourself ever was. Because the tiny hand in yours is a sweeter weight than any you will ever carry. Because the smell of them nestled into your neck makes you weep with the beauty of them. 

Because these little people are worth it. They are worth the hard. 

In a League of Their Own, one of the players tells the coach that she is quitting , because it is too hard. He replies - It’s supposed to be hard! If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.

So, today I will try again, and probably fail again. 
And it will be great.